Sometimes its difficult to tell the difference between a really good idea and a really bad one until it's already been staged. This is the stress awaiting every theatre company every single theatre company every single time they open their doors on a new show. But some ideas seem riskier than other even when it seems like they're perfectly innocuous. I guess that's really all I can think of with respect to Carte Blanche Studios' upcoming staging of Fawlty Towers.
Written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, the 1970s BBC sitcom is easily one of the funniest shows ever written. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that they were writing that script for themselves and a very specific group of colleagues. Cleese played Basil Fawlty--the sociably abusive owner of a hotel in England. Booth played chambermaid Polly. The series only ran for 12 episodes, which probably has a lot to do with why it's still so fondly remembered. It never really had a chance to get truly bad the way most sitcoms do . . .
But choosing a few scripts and staging them with a cast over three decades after the series ran? It's either a great idea for light comedy on a small stage or an awful idea that merely has actors who are fans of the series reciting lines to really, really good TV comedy. And it's going to be difficult to tell which direction this goes in until it actually makes it to the stage. I'm really, really hoping this is good because it's a favorite of mine.
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Local funny guy Tony Wood plays Basil. Like Cleese, Wood has written some enduring comedy--all be it on a more local level. (He wrote Cudahy Caroler Christmas, which continues to be a huge success for In Tandem Theatre every year.) A pair of talented actresses play half the central ensemble. Michelle White plays co-manager and wife Sybil Fawlty while Emily Craig plays chambermaid Polly. The waiter Manuel is played by Carte Blanche's James Dragolovich.
I've seen every one of these actors in comic roles before and they're all really, really good. But is this anything more than a group of fun, talented people re-enacting a very good TV sitcom? Come to that, does it really matter? Sounds like an unreasonably fun evening even if it's not some brilliantly clever reinvention.
The show consists a good quarter of the 12-episode series. Episodes included in the performance are “A Touch of Class,” “Hotel Inspectors,” and “Communication Problems."
Carte Blanche Studios' Fawlty Towers runs February 14th - March 3rd. For ticket reservations, call 414-688-7313.
